After being sued by a 13-year-old in South Korea in October last year, Apple sent a representative from its Cupertino HQ to meet with the country’s lawmaking officials and has now revised its replacement policy for iPhones in South Korea, according to a report by Bloomberg.
Customers in the southeast Asian country had expressed dissatisfaction over the company’s policy of handing out refurbished units as replacement for brand new iPhones suffering from manufacturing defects. The Fair Trade Commission in South Korea summoned Apple’s senior director for iPhone service Farrel Farhoudi from its Cupertino HQ to discuss those complaints.
Although Farhoudi had initially stated that Apple’s policy was in line with South Korean regulations and that it did not intend to make any changes, the company is now going to issue brand new replacements to customers who find manufacturing defects in their iPhones within a month of purchasing it, as revealed in a statement by the FTC. Alternatively, they will now be able to get free repairs and even full refunds.
Apple had amassed over two million iPhone users in South Korea by January this year, giving it a 1/3rd slice of the iPhone market share in the country. The company was also sued in South Korea over the iPhone’s location-tracking controversy and ended up paying $1,000 in damages to the claimant earlier this year.
The 💜 of EU tech
The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!
[Image courtesy of Brian A Jackson / Shutterstock.com.]
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.